The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, an immense international telescope project under construction in northern Chile, reached a major milestone on April 30, when two ALMA antennas were linked together as an integrated system to observe an astronomical object for the first time.

Processes that laid the foundation for life on Earth — star and planet formation and the production of complex organic molecules in interstellar space — are yielding their secrets to astronomers armed with powerful new research tools, and even better tools soon will be available.

Astronomers celebrated today the formal acceptance of the first North American antenna by the Joint ALMA Observatory. ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, is a gathering armada of short-wavelength radio telescopes whose combined power will enable astronomers to probe with unprecedented sharpness phenomena and regions that are beyond the reach of visible-light telescopes.

Astronomers may have solved a cosmic chicken-and-egg problem — the question of which formed first in the early Universe — galaxies or the supermassive black holes seen at their cores.

Fasten your seat belts — we’re faster, heavier, and more likely to collide than we thought. Astronomers making high-precision measurements of the Milky Way say our home Galaxy is rotating about 100,000 miles per hour faster than previously understood.

High in the Atacama region of northern Chile one of the world’s most advanced telescopes has just passed a…